Associate Director, Third-Party Delivery

Associate Director, Third-Party Delivery
Field Support • Remote with periodic travel • Full-Time, Salaried Exempt • Reports to the Chief Marketing Officer

Position Purpose

The Associate Director of Third-Party Delivery owns the day-to-day performance of a significant sales channel: Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Grubhub across every company and franchise restaurant. This role exists to make that channel more profitable, restaurant by restaurant, and to make sure the platforms live up to what they promised. The AD leads daily partner engagement and supplies analysis, recommendations, and negotiation support, while the CMO and executive leadership retain senior partner relationships and major negotiations.

The AD independently sets priorities and drives execution within approved strategy, budgets, and authority, with strategic guidance rather than daily supervision. It is also a data mandate: the AD defines what the business needs to know, resourcefully obtains and connects platform, POS, integration, and settlement data, proactively improves AI-assisted analysis and reporting, and turns financial insight into decisions.

Key Accountabilities

1. Channel Profit by Restaurant (more profit dollars per restaurant, year over year)

• Own delivery profit dollars by restaurant and platform: sales less commissions, ads, discounts, refunds, food, packaging, and relevant labor, using Finance-approved definitions.
• Turn comparable-restaurant, market, and platform trends into a ranked list of opportunities by profit, cost, and ease.
• Secure operator approvals and resources for actions with owners, dates, and targets; remove barriers, escalate stalled decisions, and track results.
• Separate comparable improvement from new-unit growth and promotional lift; report what is real.

2. Partner Performance & Leverage (platforms held to their commitments, with evidence)

• Lead daily partner discussions; challenge recommendations with evidence, advocate for restaurant economics, and pursue better support, funding, placement, and execution.
• Audit every agreement in force (fees, promotional support, placement guarantees, service levels) against what was actually delivered.
• Build the fact base for negotiations: contribution margin by tier, ad spend vs. incremental orders, menu-price and ranking effects.
• Escalate commercial and relationship issues to the CMO early, with a recommendation attached.

3. Data, Analytics & AI (reliable data supports clear decisions and action)

• Define data needs; secure and connect platform, POS, integration, and settlement data; identify gaps and develop sound analytical approaches.
• Proactively improve approved AI-assisted workflows for analysis, reporting, and issue detection; demonstrate gains in speed, accuracy, or decision quality and validate findings.
• Investigate charges and pursue recoveries with partners, with Finance validating accounting treatment and reconciliations.
• Deliver weekly restaurant scorecards and monthly leadership reviews covering profit, sales, orders, marketing, and operations, with causes, actions, owners, and dates.

4. Marketplace Marketing & Menu (every ad dollar measured on incremental profit)

• Own the approved promotional calendar by restaurant, market, and daypart; coordinate creative, capacity, and partner funding.
• Manage targeting, bids, placement, and spend; define test comparisons, budgets, success measures, and stop-or-scale decisions.
• Keep menus and availability accurate; model pricing, offers, and advertising scenarios, distinguishing incremental transactions from shifted demand.
• Own pricing and bundle strategy by platform, restaurant, and market, accounting for competitive pricing, price sensitivity, and contribution margin.
• Originate growth programs that drive trial and repeat orders, and turn proven results into repeatable playbooks.
• Stay ahead of the platforms: track new tools, ad products, and merchandising options and recommend what to test or adopt.

5. Franchisee & Operator Partnership (findings that operators act on)

• Build trust with franchisees, Territory Directors, and GMs; tailor recommendations to differing priorities, experience levels, and concerns.
• Explain financial trade-offs, address objections, and earn commitment; secure participation in approved initiatives.
• Respect operator approval authority and influence through evidence and follow-through.

6. Restaurant Execution & Onboarding (no lost sales to avoidable errors)

• Monitor availability, order accuracy, cancellations, refunds, prep delays, and recurring guest concerns by restaurant.
• Work root causes with Operations, Ops Services, and Technology so the same problem does not recur.
• Onboard every new restaurant to all platforms, with menus, pricing, hours, integrations, and ordering verified before day one.
• Keep issue ownership and escalation paths clear so nothing is lost between the partner and the restaurant.

Measures of Success

• Profit per restaurant rising: year-over-year growth in delivery profit dollars per restaurant on a comparable basis, system-wide.
• Actions land: agreed restaurant actions completed by their dates, measured against baseline, and scaled.
• Partners held to account: fees, placements, and promotional support verified against agreements; discrepancies recovered.
• Ad spend earns its keep: marketplace marketing measured on incremental profit; spend moved to what works within a quarter.
• Reliable data and reporting: restaurant data current, validated with Finance, and reported efficiently.
• Execution clean: cancellations, refunds, and downtime trending down; every new restaurant live and accurate on day one.

Key Working Relationships

Chief Marketing Officer • Delivery Partners (Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub) • Franchise Partners & Territory Directors • ED, Ops Finance • Ops Services & Technology • Marketing Team

What You Bring

Required

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent record.
• 3+ years managing restaurant third-party delivery channels or partnerships for a restaurant company, platform, or agency.
• Hands-on delivery platform operations and marketing experience.
• Strong financial modeling and spreadsheet skills.
• Proven restaurant profit results across multiple locations.
• Demonstrated AI-enabled analytical or reporting improvement with validated outputs.
• Independently leads execution, explains financial trade-offs, adapts to operator priorities, and influences action without authority.

Preferred

• Degree in business, marketing, finance, or analytics; 5+ years in restaurant delivery, digital commerce, or partnerships.
• Prior delivery service platform employment; franchise, multi-platform, POS/integration, SQL, or BI experience.
• Experience with experimentation and settlement audits.
• Has built a delivery scorecard from scratch and used it to win a fee, placement, or promotional concession from a platform.

Competencies We Look For

Channel Economics • Data Fluency • Commercial Skepticism • Operator Credibility • Independent Leadership • Clear Communication